Equilibrium - or a Lost Sense of Balance?

Any similarities to The Matrix are purely coincidental

Among my ridiculously large and ever-growing DVD collection, one of the movies I have is Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale, which I am wondering whether to keep hold of, or ditch, on the basis that the entire premise of the storyline is deeply flawed.

The story is set in a future one-world society where war has been eradicated and the world united, at the cost of all emotions being suppressed.  Showing emotion and even the ownership of that which can evoke any feeling, art, music, literature, pets, is punishable by death.  To keep emotions suppressed, the robot-like population take daily doses of a drug, prozium, whilst being led blindly by an authoritarian leader known only as father.  Against this storyline, Preston, the state's top "Grammaton Cleric" whose job it is to enforce these laws, stops taking prozium, starts showing finer feelings, and soon meets up with and joins the growing resistance, whilst being careful not to expose himself to the authorities, particularly his ambitious and devious partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs).

Sounds like an interesting story, right?  Except such a society could never work nor exist, and there are flaws throughout the movie which prove my point on this.  The 'Halls of Justice' (not their real name - it's a Judge Dredd reference, but it'll do) is a highly-stylised building.  To create such a building, the architect would have to be driven to create a building which is aesthetically pleasing, and that would require emotion.  The cross insignia likewise would require a designer, who would have to be driven by emotion.  The clerics go about seeking out and destroying works of art.  Yet within the Halls of Justice, there is an illuminated globe being held up by a statue of Atlas (itself one of mankind's biggest misconceptions - in Greek mythology Atlas holds up the Heavens, not the Earth).  To seek out and destroy that which evokes emotion and to kill the owners of such and the mass killing of the resistance would require either contempt, courage, or both - which again would be showing emotion.  There is even an execution scene where the condemned woman is wearing a red robe during the ceremony - again, both of these things would be deeply based in emotion.

Such a society would also soon die out, for without emotion, then it is unlikely the species would procreate.  Okay, it could be argued that procreation could be by test tube and artificial insemination.  But that would still require donors and surrogates.  Without emotion, who is going to volunteer for those tasks?  Where indeed, would such a society find those with the academic excellence to carry out the procedures and enhance the science?  Science requires ambition and a thirst for knowledge, and in a robot-like population, neither of such would exist - not even to the point of youths wishing to go into those fields.  Therefore, a society without emotion, even if attempted, would perhaps last a generation, and after that - nothing.  It's very premise would be it's fatal flaw and downfall.

And that applies not only to academia, but stretches to the authorities in the movies.  The population are subjected to constant rousing speeches from "Father", broadcast publicly.  To make those speeches would require a great deal of emotion. Think of past dictators since the advent of mass media; Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Papa Doc Duvalier and his son Baby Doc, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Un and Kim Jong Il, Thatcher, Dubya, to name but a few.  All used mass media to indoctrinate and spread their messages, and doing so took a great deal of emotion, just as Father displays in the movie.  At the end of one scene, a crowd watching one such speech rise up and applaud Father.  Yet if the premise were to be believed, all doing so should immediately be executed.

The clerics themselves show a great degree of emotion.  As I said, Brandt is both devious and ambitious - he actually tells Preston he would "make his career" through him.  Likewise, Brandt speaks of "hope", says he is "intuitive" and in one scene even tells Preston "I'm a wary person, cautious by nature.  Always expecting the worse."  All of these are of course very emotional responses, an in such as society as Equilibrium portrays, not the sort of thing one government operative would ever voice to another - particularly not that society's top law enforcement agent.  Even Preston himself, making a pretence of loyalty (itself an emotion) in order to gain access to the resistance, tells his superior, Dupont (Angus Macfadyen), of his 'faith' in the system.

We, Homo Sapiens, are an emotional species.  Each and every one of us is guided by our emotions every second of every minute of every day of our lives.  In any 24 hour period we will go through a huge gamut of emotions - happiness, joy, anger, frustration, anxiety, love, lust -  and a great many more, even if we are unaware of them.  And yes, I do mean a 24 hour period, because we even experience emotions in our sleep.  As you read this, right now, you are experiencing an emotion.  And as for children?  Well they are such bundles of emotions that any attempt to suppress them must ultimately fail.  Find me a child without a wish or the ability to make believe, to play, to laugh, to cry, to dream, and that is a child I should never wish to encounter - in a society I would never wish to live in.  And that's another reason why such a society must fail - because it would be a pointless and sad existence, which could only lead to mass suicides.  Our emotions are what make us - for good or bad - and something to be embraced, never rejected.

Apparently equilibrium was supposed to be loosely based on 1984.  If that is the case, then I suggest it is very loosely based, and perhaps the director and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer should actually try reading the damned book, because while George Orwell was warning of a totalitarian future which could happen, Wimmer has given us a society which could only contain the seeds of it's own downfall.

As to the movie itself, the Sunday Mirror described it as "The Matrix meets 1984", which I couldn't agree more upon, not least because there is so much which has been blatantly ripped off DIRECTLY from The Matrix.  And I'm not just talking Preston wearing black clothes and a long black coat here (or the fact that Christian Bale has been made to have more than a passing resemblance to Keanu Reeves in the movie).  There are also the impossible gun battle scenes, where Preston produces hidden guns, with which he takes out everyone else, and these scenes are even shown in slow motion in parts.  Then of course, there is the martial arts training scene between Preston and Brandt, who just happens to be black, which could not be a more blatant rip-off of Neo fighting Morpheus.  These scenes were so obviously stolen from The Matrix, I'm only surprised that Warner Bros did not sue Momentum Pictures.  But then, I've no doubt that Warner's eyebrows were more than a little raised at the sword fight towards the end, which is just a little bit of Kill Bill thrown in for good measure.

Add to all this one of the biggest gaffes of all, which has all too often been shown in movies; the Mona Lisa is portrayed as a large canvas painting.  In fact, the Mona Lisa is very small - and was painted on a wooden panel.

For me, parting with movies is like parting with books - it's like losing a limb.  But having now watched it twice, I think urgent surgery is required.

Link to IMDB synopsis (including preview) of Equilibrium below:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/